A Saudi (go figure) once wisely told me: "The greatest thing about American democracy isn't the vote - many democracies have that. The greatest thing about American democracy is the Bill of Rights, which states what the majority is not allowed to do the minority".
I think the Saudi only saw the end result and failed to appreciate the process that led to it. Many European countries have even better things, like social rights, and allowing prisoners to vote.
Democracy cannot change the culture in the country. It's just a tool for decision making in politics, better than fists. It can lead to culture change, though. Democracy causes people who didn't have power previously to be involved, and different moral view is dispersed in society.
If you would give Saudis the U.S. constitution, it would still take time before citizens would change the culture to consider women peers. The constitution itself doesn't guarantee the outcome either.
A great challenge we face is precisely this. Today DemocracyOS is strong at a local city-level. We don't believe we are ready for Federal level yet as we must understand how checks and balances work at this scale.
